


if i could give you the moon (i would give you the moon)

by sunbeamsky



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, all other characters are mentioned but the story centers Shelby and Toni, it's just more fun that way, nobody dies in the shark attack, they are very soft and very in love, they continue living on the island for about a year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbeamsky/pseuds/sunbeamsky
Summary: It’s the quiet, easy moments with Toni when Shelby wishes she could hit pause, could put the feeling of pure bliss into a bottle and shove it in her pocket. Wishes life was simple enough where it could just be the two of them on fire duty, alone and warm in their own company, forever. Well, maybe not starving on a deserted island forever, but the simplicity. No shame, no second guessing, no fear. Shame, as Toni had described it, that terrible, sickly feeling that crept in whenever Shelby began to feel happy had begun to dissipate.5 times Shelby wishes she would stop or skip time, and 1 time she realizes she doesn't have to.
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 10
Kudos: 271





	if i could give you the moon (i would give you the moon)

**One.**

Time passes in such a peculiar way. Never enough of it. Never paced properly. If all things were up to Shelby, she would be able to bat her eyes or flip and switch and pause the quiet, happy moments: biting into a strawberry, watching a movie with her brother and sister cuddled beside her, hearing the chorus of a Taylor Swift song when she was alone in the car and could belt out the lyrics. She would flip the switch again and time would come rushing past her: hurting her ankle during PE class in front of everybody, not fitting into the dress her mother had picked up for the latest pageant, her father’s conversion pamphlets, the island. The island would fit into both categories, in completely different ways. 

At first, back when things still made sense, it was complete hell. The sun burned her skin aflame, bubbling and turning purple—the dermatologist appointment was going to run up a bill for sure. Her feet ached, knees stiff from sitting all day, stomach cruel as it tugged and tugged at her skin, begging for something to eat. She could taste the Cheesecake Factory on her tongue but when she opened her eyes it was a can of LaCroix or the stench of shellfish. She tried to love the other girls, she really tried, but they drove her crazy. 

Well, not all of them. Really, just one of them. 

But it didn’t matter at the end of the day, because soon they would be rescued and Shelby could forget she ever even met Toni. That was clear, that made sense. Shelby could repeat it over and over again in her mind until it did in fact make sense. 

One moment she would have loved to zip through was the day of the shellfish. The conversation with the other girls. Having to watch Toni do… _that_ to the shell. Having the other girls look at her that way. _I don’t hate you_ , sat on the tip of her tongue, gated in a thick fog, a twist of her voice and her parent’s voices. Her pastor’s voice. God’s voice. Hate the sin, love the sinner. She’d repeat it as many times as needed. 

Mostly though, she would speed through that afternoon. Watching Toni wither in front of her very eyes. She herself filled with something that almost felt like disgust, perhaps it was something different. Shame? That’s what Toni would call it. It didn’t feel like shame though, not in the way that it felt to sneak out on a school night or eat an extra slice of cake in the middle of the night. This felt bigger than that. Scarier. She shoved the pill in Toni’s mouth and then ran as quickly as her tired feet could carry her. 

None of the other girls, not even Fatin, said much to her that day. They sat a bit further from her and a bit closer to Toni. Maybe because they had almost lost her. Maybe because, in a different way, they had lost Shelby. It was strange, confusing, to see so many people side with sin, look begrudgingly at the saints. Not that Shelby was a saint, far from it. But she was doing what was _right_ , and for the first time in her life she was being shamed for it. 

By nightfall, Martha had begun to truly struggle. A completely different story than the girl Shelby had watched vomit that morning. As if the plague itself had swooped in and covered Martha in the blanket of death, she coughed and groaned. And then came a moment Shelby wished would slow down. She was dying. Leah dropped the medicine in the woods. Toni was yelling at her. Toni didn’t think her life mattered. 

As horrifying as the day had been, they had all slept soundly that night. Each and every one of them closed their eyes and slept through the night. It was a rarity. Shelby tended the fire, less in need of sleep as the rest of them. She couldn’t help but recall the day’s events as she added twigs to the fire. Thinking about how the way the others attacked her for wishing nothing but Heaven upon Toni. Thinking about the way they looked at her, the heat of their glares familiar in an unfamiliar way. The feeling of seeing Toni inches away from her final breath, the feeling of Toni underneath her, the feeling of Toni slandering her for saving her life. It’s all she had ever wanted. 

She prayed that night, just as she always did, but this time silently instead of aloud. 

_Dear God, it’s Shelby again. I hope you’re going well, of course. I pray for my brother and sister, I hope Mama’s been cooking their favorite foods and that soccer tryouts went okay. I pray for Mama, she’s probably worried sick about me. And Daddy too, of course._

She pondered a moment, tried to do it as quietly as she could so God wouldn’t hear her deluded discrepancy. 

_And I pray you watch over Toni, and Martha and all the others. May they be in better health tomorrow._

She kept a few more prayers secret from even the lord himself. They were subconscious secrets, ones tucked so deeply that she couldn’t even understand them completely. She pushed them down and wished for world peace before ending her prayer and throwing another stick on the fire.

* * *

**Two.**

A moment Shelby wishes she could erase from her memory completely is the afternoon of the shark attack. Looking back on it, it could have gone a lot worse, but in the moment, it felt like the world was crumbling beneath her feet. In a fog of screaming and flailing and _blood_ —so much blood—was Nora dragging Rachel out of the water and across the beach. Rachel was screaming, Nora was huffing and had begun to sob, Leah was practically roaring. Fatin and Martha sprinted over to the two girls, helping Nora to guide Rachel over to the fire. Dot had made a B-line for the medical supplies. 

In all the mess, Shelby found herself feeling useless. She watched as the others acted on instinct, acted as any good person would in crisis—by helping. They washed and sanitized the torn skin. They gave Rachel water to drink. They used one of Fatin’s shirts and some pads to try and keep Rachel from bleeding out. They comforted her, told her everything was going to be okay. And Shelby watched. Horrified. Frozen. Useless. 

She looked over to Toni, the other girl followed alongside Martha’s every movement. More so helping Martha than Rachel herself, but still lending a hand, stepping up in some small way. When it had been Toni dying, she had jumped into action. Now that it was Rachel, now that Shelby wasn’t really Shelby anymore, she was stuck. 

In a way, a twisted and strange way that Shelby didn’t fully understand, Rachel wasn’t really Rachel either. The blood, the screaming, the horror. It felt like she was watching Becca die. Which didn’t make sense, she hadn’t watched Becca die, and it hadn’t been a shark attack. But something about how small Rachel looked in Nora’s arms made her feel just like Becca. 

So Shelby kept back, kept silent. Dot pulled her to the side after Rachel was bandaged. 

“If you can’t handle it, why don’t you go and get some more water from the spring?” Dot phrased it like a question, but Shelby could tell by her tone—authoritative but still gentle somehow—that it was not.

Shelby nodded and Dot helped her collect the empty LaCroix cans and Fatin’s water bottle. 

“Shelby’s going to get us some more water, okay?” Dot asked Rachel, as if it mattered if Shelby was here or not. Rachel nodded, thanked her even. 

“I’ll come with,” Toni offered. “Help carry it all.”

Shelby nodded, too lost in the memory of Becca to feel Toni take the cans from her arms. She vaguely heard Toni reassuring Martha that it was better if she stayed to watch over Rachel. The two walked away from the shore and Shelby felt like a magnet, being pulled away with such a force that it almost felt like she was wading in the ocean water. She couldn’t stay, couldn’t stand to see the blood any more. 

“You okay?” Toni’s voice asked, quiet and clouded in the haze. Shelby blinked a few times and took a look around to see that they had already entered the forest, that her body knew the trail so well she didn’t even have to navigate to keep her feet moving. Toni was following her lead. 

“That was real scary back there,” Shelby answered, her voice a bit hoarse from not having spoken since that morning. With Toni. 

“It was. For a minute there, I really thought…”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“She’s going to make it though,” Toni asked softly, making Shelby stop in her steps and turn to face Toni. Only then did she notice how scared Toni really looked. It was perhaps the first time she had ever seen Toni look truly afraid. Toni had probably been scared on the plane, but Shelby had been in the bathroom stall when the lights began to flicker and the plane began to shake. “Right?”

Something in Shelby’s stomach rumbled, something other than hunger. The only feeling she could connect it to was the moment when Toni refused to take the pill. It was a feeling that came over Shelby, took over her limbs and her speech. Something that arose in her when Toni was in danger. 

“She’s going to be just fine,” Shelby declared, setting down the water bottle and reaching out to wrap her arms around Toni. “They’re taking real good care of her and Dottie’s got all that medicine. She’s going to be just _fine_.” Toni was limp in her arms, face tucked away in her neck, the aluminum cans cold against her stomach. Most crashed onto the dirt as Toni’s arms snaked around Shelby, clutching at her tank top as she began to cry. Shelby held onto her as tightly as she could and tried not to think of Becca or Rachel. Tried to think only of Toni. 

“What if she’s not? There was so much blood.”

“Dottie’s got all that medicine,” Shelby repeated aloud. Maybe Toni needed the mantras as much as Shelby did. “She’s got all that medicine.”

“But—”

Shelby placed her hands on either side of Toni’s face and forced them apart for a moment, just so she could look Toni in the eyes to make her point. 

“She’s going to be just fine. We’re going to be just fine.”

Toni sniffled, and then clung back onto Shelby. Shelby held her tight, pushed down all the fear and panic, and just held onto Toni. This was a promise she intended on keeping. They _were_ going to be just fine.

* * *

**Three**

It the quiet, easy moments with Toni when Shelby wishes she could hit pause, could put the feeling of pure bliss into a bottle and shove it in her pocket. Wishes life was simple enough where it could just be the two of them on fire duty, alone and warm in their own company, forever. Well, maybe not starving on a deserted island forever, but the simplicity. No shame, no second guessing, no fear. Shame, as Toni had described it, that terrible, sickly feeling that crept in whenever Shelby began to feel happy had begun to dissipate. Not completely, not yet, but it was gone most of the time. 

The others were asleep, like actually asleep which didn’t happen often. Or ever. Which meant that Shelby and Toni could talk freely and openly. Toni put a few sticks on the fire and Shelby zipped up Fatin pink, cheetah-print hoodie around herself to keep warmer. 

“Daddy and I used to go camping together all the time,” Shelby mused. “If he saw the sticks we feed this one, I bet he’d be real disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed, in you? Not possible” Toni teased, grinning at Shelby as she settled in beside her, tugging on her arm to silently as Shelby to keep them both warm. She always would. She wrapped her arm around Toni’s shoulders. 

“The sticks are too small. A real fire wants logs or branches. Real kindling.”

“If it looks like a fire and acts like a fire,” Toni teased, her tone softer now, understanding that Shelby might not only be talking about the kindling. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks, you know.”

Even from inside of her arms, Toni’s voice sounded so far away.

“It does, though. It matters to me what my parents think of me. What God thinks of me.”

Toni was silent, probably waiting for Shelby to keep talking. She had never told anybody, not even in her prayers, about these fears. A little voice in the back of mind cried out to keep them pushed deep down, dark and hidden. A louder voice told her that she could trust Toni. That Toni might even understand some of them. 

“What did your parents say, when you told them?”

“They, uh. Well, I guess I never had to.” Her voice was different, no flirtatious spark or energetic light. They sounded almost hollow.

“Did they just know?”

“No, they still don’t.”

“I thought you were out back home?” Shelby asked confusedly. Toni had been so unashamed when she called Shelby out on the beach that day. Surely she was out. 

“I am. It’s not that. It’s just—I don’t really like talking about my parents.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Shelby said quickly, holding onto Toni tighter, trying to bring the life back into her voice. “We don’t have to talk about them, then. I could tell you about mine instead?”

Toni nodded against her side, her feet raking smooth circles into the sand below. It was an anxious-tactic Shelby had grown accustomed to. 

“My mom loves to garden,” Shelby began, “she has some vegetables in the backyard and herbs too. In the summertime, my brother and sister and I will help her pick them and then we’d make a big salad and have a picnic in the yard. I would set up one of those little charcuterie boards with cheeses and grapes and the works. And one time this summer, Mama even let me have a little bit of wine.”

“She sounds great,” Toni hummed. 

“She loves us, that’s for sure,” Shelby answered, seeing no memory of her happy, elegant, green-thumbed mom, but only the look of horror on her face as they packed her into the van to take her away. “She was so disappointed in me.”

“What happened?”

Shelby took a deep breath, wished she could just keep holding it inside—the story, the breath, the fear, the shame—but eventually she had always known that she would need to let it out. So she told Toni all about Becca. 

“…and Daddy,” Shelby’s voice faltered as the memory crept too close, “the look on his face after he got the call.”

Toni’s hand gripped her tightly, gave it a squeeze. Shelby hadn’t reached the end of the story, still wasn’t sure if she would be able to say it aloud without falling apart. She tried to bite back a sob but it spilled out anyway. 

“My dad bolted when my mom told him she was pregnant,” Toni admitted as Shelby tried and failed to stop her tears. “My mom told me we were better off, but I have no idea if that’s true of not. She wasn’t the world’s best mom.”

“I’m sorry,” Shelby stuttered out, finally able to take in a real breath. 

“Don’t be. It’s just the cards were dealt. Sometimes the cards are shit and,” Toni gave her hand another squeeze, “sometimes they’re a winning hand.”

Shelby laughed, coughing on her own wet laugh and rested her head on Toni’s. 

“Becca killed herself.”

Toni’s breath hitched but Shelby felt her joints loosening after the confession. 

“And I couldn’t even go to the funeral because my parents wanted to send me away to get me _fixed_.”

“Shelby…”

“Pretty shitty cards, right?”

“Really,” Toni answered. The quiet lulled, an easy emptiness took over. Only the crashing of the waves and crackling of the fire filled the silence. Neither could quite figure out what to say. But Shelby’s breathing was beginning to level off, all the tears fallen from her eyes. It was getting colder though, so she nuzzled against Toni. She didn’t feel even an ounce of shame right then. 

“I never had a dad, but I also didn’t really get to have a mom either,” Toni said eventually, quietly in a deep and sad voice. “She was all alone and she worked three jobs but it was never enough to keep up afloat. She started using and, for a while, it wasn’t that bad. But then it was really bad and now it’s been almost two years since I’ve seen her.”

“Where did she go?”

“Rehab. They don’t really let you visit unless they’re making progress so I guess she’s still sick.”

This time it was Toni’s voice that began to tremble. 

“So what happened to you while she was in there?”

“Foster homes,” Toni muttered, wiping at her eyes but failing to stop herself from crying. “Shit, I’m sorry. This is about you and I—”

“Hey, Toni,” Shelby stated, “Toni. It’s okay. I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore.”

Toni nodded and wiped her eyes again so Shelby reached to hold them both in her hands, keep Toni from suppressing her sadness again. 

“I miss her so much,” she confessed, voice breaking with exhaustion. “She probably doesn’t even know I’m lost.”

“Shit,” Shelby whispered, repositioning her arms around Toni to try and cocoon as much of the other as she could, shield her from as much of the wind and smoke and fury of the world. 

“Shitty cards.”

Shelby gave both of Toni’s hands a squeeze and then, without even realizing she was doing it, pressed a kiss against her forehead. 

“Aces.”

* * *

**Four**

They have been in the bunker for two weeks. Two entire weeks that Shelby hasn’t been able to see Toni. Save one trip to see Leah, Shelby hadn’t seen anybody but the two agents. She was anxious and hyperaware, paranoid and scared, and really, really missing Toni. 

When they had first been rescued, they were told that they needed to separate because of dangers shellfish infesting the island, that it was for their own health and safety that they remain apart for a few days and then they would be reunited with each other and their families. Shelby had held tightly to Toni’s hand as they loaded all the girls into a rescue boat and over to a nearby island, far more populated but still nothing like back in Texas. They had been flown over to a medical building—the bunker—and put into separate rooms for containment purposes. Toni’s eyes had been full of fear and Shelby’s of tears when they were forcibly separated. 

“Soon!” Shelby had screamed across the hall as they agents dragged them apart. _We’re going to be just fine, I promise_. 

Shelby didn’t pray to God to watch over Toni while they were apart, she hadn’t prayed in quite some time. Maybe two months, maybe even three. They had stopped counting the days after six months had passed on the island. It felt like a losing battle, like a hope that only limited them. 

Once Rachel had more or less healed from the shark attack, life became much lighter and happier than it ever should be living on a deserted island. Chores were kept up, routines in line, life began winding like the hands on a clock. Toni and Shelby told the others at month six. Fatin helped Shelby cut off two weeks before they were rescued. Everything between those moments was a beautiful, wonderful blur. 

Not everything, not completely. Life was easy, being with Toni was a dream. But something about the island was off and ever since the shark attack Leah had begun to spiral. At first, she had come up with this elaborate story that Nora was “in on it” and had somehow trapped her in a ditch somewhere on the island. When nobody believed her, she started to come up with even more stories. She was convinced that there were cameras watching them and had found herself on a very dangerous path of attempting to catch _them_ in the act—whoever they were. 

It had been a bit freaky but mostly worrisome and sad. The others would exchange glances as Leah came up with new theories, taking turns watching over her at night to make sure she didn’t throw herself in the ocean or light the island on fire to shut down the entire operation. It was just Leah’s anxious-tactic. Until it wasn’t. 

A note slipped under Shelby’s door one day. Just barely visible against the concrete floor, but there it was. Shelby sprung from her bed to retrieve it. 

_The agents are watching us. Don’t tell them a fucking thing._

It was Leah, that much was obvious. Shelby didn’t think much of it, but she had already been planning to tell her own version of events transpiring on the island. This story might go to the press and the last thing she needed her parents knowing about was Toni. For Shelby’s and Toni’s sake, she was going to tell them only what they needed to know. 

So when they asked her if the person she needed to see was Toni—the first name they offered, in such an eerily knowing way—Shelby began connected the dots. The personal questions, the backstory. It was starting to make sense. By the end of her third interview session, when a week had passed and there was no sign of their families or of seeing the other girls, Shelby had made up her mind. Leah was right. 

Everything Leah had said always made sense, in the out-of-this-world conspiracy theory way, never in the logical and sensible way. But it made sense regardless. And maybe Shelby was crazy to believe it all, but she finally did. 

When the alarms began to blare one night, echoing the halls in bright red lights. Shelby knew it was Leah. She had figured it out. 

“Shelby?”

That voice didn’t belong to Leah. It belonged to Toni. She was opening the door. She was running through the doorway. She was flinging herself at Shelby. 

Toni. Toni _Toni. Toni Toni._

Toni was here, in her arms. She clung to her, wrapped her arms as far as they could stretch and pulled Toni so close they could almost become one. Toni was shaking and Shelby could feel tears spilling out of her eyes. 

“Fuck, Shelby,” Toni croaked, tucking her face into Shelby’s neck, pulling tightly as Shelby’s sweatshirt. “I thought I might never see you again.”

“I’m here, my love,” Shelby cooed. “I’m right here. We’re alright. We’re going to be just fine.”

She could feel Toni relaxing at the familiar words. Shelby herself felt like she was on fire. In the best possible way. The alarm continued ring and heavy footsteps clambered down the hallway, approaching fast. Shelby let go just enough to press a kiss to Toni’s lips. 

“We’re going to be just fine.”

* * *

**Five**

They spent three months in the bunker as it turned out. That night it had been Leah, escaped out of her room and roaming through the forbidden halls. Later she would tell the others about the footage of the boys on their island. About how they were in Peru and about how Nora had known all along, had actually been _in on it_. Leah had been right all along though she wished she wasn’t. 

The first time it happened, they were separated right away, locked back in their individual cells with a guard—if you could call them that—at each of their doors. But after a week, some grew too empathetic and the girls began exchanging notes. Only some of them, the ones lucky enough to have a kind guard. Leah’s, for some reason, trusted her to write to the others. And write she did. A letter to each and every girl, slipped under their door frame just enough that the cameras couldn’t see it. Each letter with a series of steps clearly laid out. A plan to escape. 

Fatin and Dot had been the ones to actually conspire the escape plan. Leah was the one to spread the word. They waited, waited until the most amount of guards were asleep, or out of the office, and then they ran. They tried it once and failed after only ten minutes. The second time, it took even less time considering they couldn’t get the doors to unlock again. 

A therapy session, they had dared to call it. There had been no plane crash, no Hawaiian retreat. They knew the girls were starving and afraid, and they had put them there. They had known. Nora had known. Jeanette—no, _Linh_ —had known. Gretchen, was her name, had organized the entire ordeal. She had the reason Linh had died. She was the reason a shark had almost eaten Rachel. She was the reason Martha and Toni had almost died that night. She had _wanted_ this to happen? And called it therapy. 

Some of their parents had known. Well, known that this was going to be a long, therapeutic and rehabilitation program designed to…whatever it had been called, they had known. The thought of going to home to them disgusted Shelby. She never wanted to see them again. But her little brother and sister, she wished she could go home and give them each a big squeeze. 

Instead, she got on the plane to California with Dot and Fatin. 

If Toni could freeze time, she would’ve stayed in the airport forever. She held Toni tightly as they cried onto each other. 

“When?” Toni sobbed against Shelby. 

“Soon. I promise. I’m going to get a job as soon as we get there and I’ll have the money to visit you in no time.” _They both knew it was going to be a while before either could afford a trip_. 

“I’ll come to you.”

“And I’ll look forward to it every day,” Shelby swooned, gripping Toni so hard she worried it might bruise. She didn’t have it in her to let up. Toni wasn’t letting up either. “We’re going to be just fine.”

“Just fine,” Toni repeated. 

Martha had to take Toni from Shelby’s arms and guide her onto the plane as the flight attendants called for the final boarding zone. Before they could scan their tickets, Shelby couldn’t help herself but run over to the two and pull Toni in for one last kiss. 

“I love you so much, Toni Shalifoe.”

“I love you more, Shelby Goodkind.”

Shelby collapsed between Dot and Fatin, sobbing as the three watched the plane take off into the distance. In that moment, Shelby felt like she had truly lost everything she had ever loved. Her parents, all but dead to her. Her siblings, stuck under their lock and key. Becca. Her freedom. Toni. _Toni. Toni. Toni. Toni._

She finally understood how Leah felt those first few weeks, as every minute of every day she could do nothing but think about Toni, about how deeply she missed her. Fatin sold her dad’s fancy watches and it got them a security deposit and the first month of rent. With the water damage, they didn’t go for anything like what Fatin had imagined. So the girls got jobs. And they worked. 

Shelby waitressed, putting on her pageant smile was an easy way to get tips from anybody she could flirt a big bill out of. They bought mattresses and groceries and paid for their utilities and bus passes. Shelby had never realized how expensive boring, stupid, necessities were. Every dollar she spent on cheap cereal and frozen peas was less money into her “Visit Toni” jar. It was a collective jar, all three chipping in whatever loose change or extra dollar they had. Shelby would insist they had to come too since it was all of their money, but Fatin and Dot were firm that as soon as Shelby could afford a ticket she would go. 

It didn’t take as long to save up the money as Shelby had worried, but it was way fucking longer than she could bare. She had four connecting flights and couldn’t bring so much as a carry-on, but Shelby was in the air and flying to see the most important person in her life. She hadn’t been this happy since she was on the island. That damned island. 

Shelby cried half of the flight, some aftershocks of their faux-crash but mostly out of excitement and relief. The passenger in the seat beside her was an older woman with kind eyes who asked if she could hold Shelby’s hand when she had begun to cry. Shelby nodded and latched onto her hand instantly. She had wished Shelby good luck seeing her girlfriend when they landed and let her cut ahead when they departed the plane. 

She ran across the airport. 

Although they weren’t very tall, Shelby saw them instantly. It was Toni, Martha, and Martha’s parents—presumably—all holding a big banner that said welcome Shelby. Martha was waving sporadically and Toni was bouncing, practically leaping, in her step. Shelby ran, crashing into them. Into their warmth. Into Toni. 

Her sweet Toni, who burrowed against her instantly, both of them crying now. Shelby was surprised she hadn’t knocked her right over. She kissed the top of her head, each of her cheeks, her forehead, and then her lips. When she pulled Toni back against her chest for a hug she felt Martha’s arms wrap around them both. 

She was home. 

“I missed you so fucking much,” Toni whispered against her skin.

“I missed you more.”

* * *

**+One**

Eventually, the Los Angeles apartment dream faltered and the girls decided to relocate. The apartments were too expensive and too small. The traffic was unbearable and the weather too hot. They had trouble deciding on a new place to live—New York was just as expensive and Milwaukee was too cold. Somehow, they managed to decide on Chicago. Well, the decision was actually quite easy when all the other Unsinkables announced they too wanted to move in since they had all graduated from high school. And the city right in the middle of everybody was Chicago. 

With seven roommates, finding an affordable place to live wasn’t very hard and before the group knew it all seemed right in the world again. The house was large, though in need some repairs and fresh paint, and as the bustling cold approached and the days grew shorter, the nights of hot chocolate, board games, and movies nights grew more plentiful. 

There were enough bedrooms for everybody to only have one roommate: Rachel with Nora—per her request and to Nora’s delight—Fatin with Martha—eager to have a new roommate—and Leah with Dot. Which left Toni and Shelby to room together, their room a deep but faded red from the previous owners that Toni insist they leave on the walls since it reminded her of the Lychees. And who was Shelby to deny Toni such a request? 

Lying in bed together one night, Shelby felt the world slow down around her in the way it only ever did around Toni. November darkness swept the city but the street lights glistened in from between the blinds. Toni’s head was settled on her chest as they watched some boring movie that Toni had picked because it was about basketball. Shelby ran her fingers through Toni’s curls as everything came to crashing halt. 

“I love you, Toni,” Shelby declared quietly, contently. 

“Huh?” Toni hummed, her attention completely on the movie before them. 

“I just love you,” Shelby explained, kissing the top of Toni’s curls. 

“Love you too, Shelbs, but please be quiet, it’s getting really good.” 

Shelby chuckled and rolled her eyes at the terrible movie but gave Toni a good squeeze and shuffled deeper into the mattress and blankets covering them. 

For the first time in Shelby’s entire life, she didn’t want to fast forward or hit rewind, even press pause. There was no need to freeze, to spend eternity in this moment right here. They had so much to look forward to, so many things they would be able to do together, to experience together. For the first time in Shelby’s entire life she just felt free from the universe, from god, from her parents, from Gretchen, from time itself. She had everything she needed. 

And they were going to be just fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be a five times shelby was there for toni and then it morphed into this...so now this is just whatever this is. thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed <3


End file.
